President Moon Orders to Create Job Creation Commission

May 11, 2017 08:13|May 11, 2017 08:24

Newly elected President Moon Jae-in instructed that the administration establish a job creation commission as part of fulfilling election pledges he made during the campaign. Cheongwadae (Presidential Palace) said on May 10 that President Moon asked Deputy Prime Minister Yoo Il-ho and Minister of Employment and Labor Lee Ki-kwon to keep reporting job creation situation and form the new commission specializing in helping the economy create jobs.

During his election campaign, Mr. Moon promised repeatedly that he would become a "job president" and create up to 810,000 new jobs in the public sector. After holding a swearing-in ceremony at the National Assembly on the 10th, he said in a speech, "I will try my best to minimize the president's power as much as possible while allowing the legislative and judiciary powers to be totally independent of the administrative branch. I will make sure to create checks and balances so that no one institution can wield excessive power."

As for economic policy, he said, "First of all, I will focus my attention on creating more jobs while at the same time putting in effort to reform economic concentration in this country. Under my administration, the word crony capitalism will disappear entirely, with inequality across regions, classes, and generations reduced to a minimum. I will also try to solve the problem of temporary workers in this society."

He also touched on the issue of foreign policy including the North Korea nuclear threat, saying, "If I have to, I will fly right away to Washington, D.C., Beijing, and Tokyo to have talks with leaders and travel to Pyungyang if conditions are right. I will do everything in my power to strengthen the Korea-U.S. ties while negotiating with the Chinese government over the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system."

Suh Hoon, who was nominated as the National Intelligence Service Director, said in a press conference held on the same day, "It is too early to talk about a summit meeting between leaders of South and North Korea. But I believe such summit talks are necessary."